When constructing carbon cathodes for high energy lithium and calcium batteries, carbon black powder is usually mixed with a wetting solvent such as methanol or water, and a binding agent such as polytetrafluoroethylene is added. The resulting stiff paste is smeared on a thin expanded metal screen, pressed and rolled between sheets of blotting paper to the desired thickness, air dried overnight and finally oven dried for one hour at 280.degree. C. Upon cooling, the cathode is repressed and rolled to aid the binder to flow causing cohesion of the carbon particles. The resulting cathode sheets are then cut to the desired size. This fabrication procedure is suitable primarily for carbon blacks with surface areas.ltoreq.250 m.sup.2 /g. Higher area carbon blacks with areas up to 1500 m.sup.2 /g can not be easily fabricated into cathodes using this method since the polytetrafluoroethylene binder can not adequately coat all of the surface area and resulting carbon cathodes tend to crumble easily when cut and don't stick well to the screen. Although one may improve carbon-screen and carbon-carbon interparticle adhesion by increasing the percentage of polytetrafluoroethylene binder added, this has the undesireable effect of increasing bulk cathode resistance.
Recently there have been theoretical and experimental indications that improved battery performance could result from cathodes constructed with high area carbon blacks. Cathodes have indeed been fabricated from high area carbon black, but the methods used have not always been practical. The cathodes have tended to be small and fragile, and the fabrication method not easily suitable for all types of carbon blacks.